This year is likely to be a poor year for sunflower acreage in Manitoba. It’s not because prices are bad, but because farmers in the last couple of years have been ravaged by sclerotinia. People expect acres to drop by about 20 percent. Manitoba is a world leading exporter and producer of confectionary sunflowers. Manitoba […] Read more
Ed White
Stories by Ed White
Research looks for tasteful ways to end castration
Eliminating castration would be a change for the North American hog industry, but it doesn’t have to be a disaster. Intact males have greater feed efficiency, nitrogen retention and lean gain, making them as much as 36 percent better in gross margin, James Squires of the University of Guelph told the recent Manitoba Swine Seminar. […] Read more
Semen quality a growing concern
The hog industry has semen myths and semen beliefs but few semen facts. That leaves producers’ knowledge of semen production and quality dreadfully weak, says a leading Quebec researcher. “We have been a bit lazy in the way we feed boars,” Jacques Matte of Agriculture Canada’s Dairy and Swine Research and Development Centre said in […] Read more
Sunny future for sunflowers?
This year is likely to be a poor year for sunflower acreage in Manitoba. It’s not because prices are bad, but because farmers in the last couple of years have been ravaged by sclerotinia. People expect acres to drop by about 20 percent. Manitoba is a world leading exporter and producer of confectionary sunflowers. Manitoba […] Read more
Some wicked bug this way comes?
Chris Gillard of the University of Guelph summed up his view of the Western Bean Cutworm this way: “This thing scares me more than anything else I’ve worked with,” said the pulse crop specialist at the Manitoba Special Crops Symposium. It’s a pest in edible beans and corn – big Ontario crops – and also […] Read more
U.S. storm helps some, hurts others, keeps wheat steady
Wheat markets are jumpy this winter as they juggle a host of hot market potatoes. The latest thing to keep the market boiling is, ironically, a deep freeze in western Kansas. A snowstorm laid down a helpful blanket on the eastern fringe of Kansas but left the western expanses of vulnerable crop exposed. “It will […] Read more
Lock in some interest rates, FCC official advises farmers
Short-term and floating rate loans are so cheap that they’re hard to say no to. But there is much fear that interest rates might start rising, and some call for rapidly escalating rates in a future inflationary environment. What does Canada’s dominant farm lender think farmers should do when taking out debt: lock in rates […] Read more
KAP requests gov’t help to keep bears from bees
Bullets are cheaper than bear-proof fences. So Manitoba’s general farm organization wants the provincial government to pay for fences if it wants farmers to avoid using bullets when dealing with honey-hungry bruins. “There seem to be an awful lot of bears,” said former Keystone Agricultural Producers president Ian Wishart at the organization’s annual meeting. The […] Read more
Beans don’t add up to a hill o’beans in this crazy world
Why should edible bean growers plant edible beans this spring? That was a question that presented Ontario bean buyer Jim Barclay with a challenge this morning during a session at the Manitoba Special Crops Symposium. He suggested farmers knew how to grow the crop and it fit into their rotations. It allows farmers to lock-in […] Read more
Lies, damned lies, and statistics in journalism
Statistics are greasy little pigs that we journalists have to often wrestle with, and many times the pigs win and get away from us. But sometimes we can wrestle them down and make them squeal for the reader. This is good. But sometimes, if they’re tackled too hard, they’ll scream and writhe and get mutilated. […] Read more
